It looks like Virtual Prairie is on the short list to become one of the next projects included in the DC-Vault. I've been running it for only a short time, but initially find the WUs to be in the range of 15 - 30 minutes in length. They require about 256k of memory per process and seem to run faster (at least on my AMDs) in conjunction with other projects and limited to 2 processes/quad.

Feel free to join the fun and don't forget to join the Ars Technica team!

A few days ago the server disk ran out of space and the WUs generated were bad. Apparently they're just letting them run through the system until they get purged, kind of strange. Anyway the bad ones error out immediately and get sent back. The home page warns:

quote:

The project comes across long periods of inactivity (no workunits available). During these periods, we are extensively studying the outcome of the previous workunits and reflecting these results on the application and the coming workunits.

Up to now there's been work since I've been running it, but it's dry at the moment. Kind of reminiscent of SIMAP, Lattice and Aqua.

looks interesting.... I just added the project along side a couple others that I have going atm. If everything goes well I may just let it go for a bit while there is work to be had.

Looking at the website it seems they run WU's in batches and then analyze the data before a new set of wu's are released. Anyone know how long work has been available in the past??? I know it will all depend on how many are active in the project. just trying to get a feel for how long work may be available.

Looks like VP has some work available..... don't know how long it will last, but I just noticed I had downloaded a bunch and there are more available, so I don't think it is a resend of unreturned work.

I've thrown this on two work computers (i5-650 XP 32-bit and e8400 Win7 64-bit) to try out. Tomorrow I'll be in a spot to queue up 3 more to just leave for the break. We'll see what that does for the team.

Yeah I had that same issue on my first WU. it corrects itself after the first result is returned and the new batch of WU's gets sent down. Its a good idea to have a backup project as VP runs WU's in batches. the last batch ran for about 2 months then there was a week or so off. with the new wu's coming so soon I am not sure how long this one will last. But, 2 days of continuous work is a good sign

Quite a few projects have updated their server software to support backup projects. You'll need a fairly recent BOINC client and a backup project (one that accepts a value of 0 without "correcting" it to 100). Then you'll only DL a WU when your other project(s) run out of work. And NICE to see you crunching again Leav

Quite a few projects have updated their server software to support backup projects. You'll need a fairly recent BOINC client and a backup project (one that accepts a value of 0 without "correcting" it to 100). Then you'll only DL a WU when your other project(s) run out of work. And NICE to see you crunching again Leav

The part that gets me is will this work with Boincstats BAM? I use BAM to control my minions. Will the zero setting pass through to my clients?

Nicely done! And some of my machines have not yet hit their stride. At this rate, we will pass Planet 3DNow! in 2 days. While this does not hit them where we need to - Bio - it does show them we mean business.

Also note that all I have working are my work desktop computers. I did not put anything on any of my i7 laptops for fear of overheat. I have 6 Q-series quads at home I could fire up too. (On pain of death. I swore to the wife I would not.)

EDIT: If we could get 1 of you guys into the top 10, we could keep one of UH's people from being in the top 10. Two more people in the top 10 and overtaking BoincStats would look a lot more feasible.